Reading is out of the question⁠—I can’t fix my attention on books. Let me try if I can write myself into sleepiness and fatigue. My journal has been very much neglected of late. What can I recall⁠—standing, as I now do, on the threshold of a new life⁠—of persons and events, of chances and changes, during the past six months⁠—the long, weary, empty interval since Laura’s wedding-day?